Tis’ the Damn Season

This year was the first year I was not able to be home for Christmas. It was just too difficult with traveling during the pandemic and to make the trip worthwhile. Yes, I know that might sound cliché, one day with family would be enough for me honestly. It was just hard to justify the trip. We had about 8 or 9 days off total. So, take 2 days away for travel due to time zones and depending on flight availability of course. I would then need to quarantine until I could take a COVID-19 test and receive the results so let’s say 1 day for that process (rapid COVID test.) I would have to come back 3 days before our break ended to get a test here in Finland (they do not have the rapid tests.) This would leave me about 2 days home. Which would feel so rushed and more like a tease than actually enjoying the time with family. I would have loved having 2 days home and they may have been the highlight of 2020, but I decided not to travel home for the holiday’s this year.

Our Christmas break was 9 days as I said before. Jaidyn and I planned a trip with another American playing in Finland, Jody. We spent 7 of the 9 days visiting new cities and having once and a life time adventures together. This was not an impromptu trip; we were thinking about this for weeks before we actually committed to the idea.

The holiday trip started with Jaidyn and I traveling to Tampere (a bigger city in Finland but south of Pihtipudas) we took a bus for about 1.5 hours and then hopped on a train for the remaining 2 hours. We went to this American style café when we got there and had breakfast for dinner. American pancakes w/ bourbon syrup, eggs, sausage, bacon and coffee. It is quite hard to find places in Europe that serve “brunch,” we were so excited to say the least!

We stayed at Jody’s place in Kangasala – this is a small town outside of Tampere (suburb like). The next day we explored Tampere all day which meant taking the bus into the city. We went to the Christmas market, shopping malls, a sky bar, ate dinner at a burger joint called Naughty Burger, YUM. Those were just a few places we went. We did not get back to Jody’s place until 9 pm – that was a full day in the city! That night it was time to pack again because we were leaving to go to Rovaniemi in the morning.

We took the train to Rovaniemi from Tampere which was about 6.5 hours. A long travel day that was. The night we arrived we went to our Airbnb and then walked into the city to eat. We had YUCA, this was a taco restaurant – which worked out perfectly because what’s better than eating tacos on Taco Tuesday. Had some street tacos that were delish and a Margarita to top it off, we also tried the churros – very good.

On Wednesday, we planned to go to the Rauna Zoo. This meant we had to take a bus about 45 minutes south because the zoo was not directly in the city. I had not been to a zoo in I think over 4 years. It was very cool how it was set up, we had to walk around to each enclosure outside. It was a bit chilly but worth it. There were about 30 or so animals that we saw. Some animals were not there due to weather or hibernation. One of the best animals we got to see was a polar bear. This was massive, I will probably never see one like that again. Some other animals we saw included a bunch of owls, otters, moose, reindeer, white tailed deer, red foxes, hawks and a wolf pack. Some of the animals were rescued or injured – which is why they were at the zoo. The zoo offered a reindeer sleigh ride so, of course we had to do that. One reindeer pulled all of us. We captured some amazing pictures from the day. We took the bus back to Rovaniemi and then ate dinner at Café 21. Dinner was good, I also had 2 gingerbread martinis. YUM.

Hyvää Joulua! (Merry Christmas in Finnish.) Thursday was the Snowmobiling day. We booked our trip through Nordic Unique Travels; our guides were awesome – so friendly and spoke great English. We got picked up around 10:30 for our trip. They provided us with plenty of snow/cold gear. We looked like astronauts in our suits. LOL. We had to ride ATV’s because they were worried about the amount of snow for the snowmobiles. They drove us about 25 minutes north in Lapland to their home base (Article Circle Region.) Our guide gave us instructions on how to work the ATV. We knew mostly how to do it but there was an older guy with us and he was struggling. We went about 10 minutes and then we had to stop because he had turned the ATV into the ditch. Luckily, no one was injured and the ATV was fine. I drove solo on the way to our “fire, cookies & juice” rest stop. It was SO fun. I love driving four wheelers anyways and have done it multiple times back home. We got into some deeper snow when we went into the forest but honestly that made it more exciting. We stopped to rest and took some pictures and videos. It was beautiful. Then time to head back so I then rode with Jody. It was nice because I was able to take some pictures and videos then. Obviously, they did not want us to take pictures when we were driving. Literally one of the best experiences in my life. Taking pictures/videos did make your hands cold but it was so worth it in the end. We saw some wild reindeer in the van on the way back into the city. They took us back to the office so we could drop off the gear and then they dropped us at our Airbnb. We ended up getting dinner in the city and then going to an Irish pub that was open. It was Christmas day for Filander’s so not many places were open. We had some glögi with alcohol, spices and a dried orange. This is the “Christmas drink” of choice here. We ended up having to walk home because the buses were not working. About a 25-minute walk when it was windy and snowing, at least the glögi kept us warm 😉

MERRY CHRISTMAS! We planned this trip perfectly so we could visit Santa Claus Village on our Christmas Day. We took the first bus there which got us to the village around 10:30. This was perfect timing because we ate some coffee and breakfast (rice porridge) then went and took some pictures before many people arrived. We also went and saw Santa around 11:20 or so, which was also great timing because we only had to wait about 20 minutes. You got to talk with Santa and then get your pictures taken. It was set up perfectly because of COVID there was a glass in between you and Santa, but you could not see it in the pictures. It was so nice to have professional pictures. We ended up buying them because we would probably never have that experience again. Then we hit up a bunch of gift shops. So many gift shops! Got some glögi to keep us warm while walking around, may have added a little bit of something to help us keep warm, if you know what I mean. Took some more pictures, did a tiktok on Mrs. Claus’ porch. Then went to Santa’s official post office. This was really cool because you could send postcards or letters home from there. Time to eat dinner at the Three Elves Restaurant. We all ordered the Reindeer burger and cloudberry wine. The burger was phenomenal. It did taste different than a normal burger of course but the flavor was amazing. We missed the last bus back to town (the travel lady told us the wrong time since it was a holiday…) so we had to call a taxi. The taxi dropped us at Oliver’s Corner which was the Irish pub we were at the night before. Glögi, glögi, glögi. We drank a few of those throughout the day and night. I got to Facetime some family that night which was nice. Then it started to hit me that wow, I really did miss Christmas. Christmas spent at Santa Claus Village was a once and a life time experience though, very grateful for that.

Saturday, this was our travel day. We walked to the train station and got on the train by 10 am. We were getting off the train at Oulu to then catch the bus to Pihtipudas. Our bus wasn’t until 2:40 so once we got to Oulu, we put our luggage in a locker and walked into the city to get a coffee (peppermint latte) and some lunch. The time went by fast, before we knew it, it was time to walk to the bus stop and get on our last bus home. We ended up getting home around 5. We made it home – what a relief!

That night I Facetimed my family. Spoke to most of the fam. I am so lucky that we have this way of communication. My dad & others sent some presents/letters over in my package so I was able to open them while on Facetime. This definitely makes me feel like I am there. This was nice to feel included even though I was thousands of miles away.

As you may have realized – we were very busy over our “break” so if I did not say Merry Christmas to you individually, I apologize. I am grateful for all of my friends and family who support me. I am thankful that I have lifelong friendships that never waiver even if I am only home for 4 months out of the year. I love you all!

Hope you all enjoyed a safe and merry holiday season spent with your loved ones!

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Until next time,

jaelyn